Aftermath
by IronicNarwhal
Summary: Some part of him knows it's best. He knows that he would rather be here than somewhere else, drowning in depression like everyone else. He knows that he would rather be here, helping, than ignorant to the situation and alone and so many other things. He would rather know Sherlock was alive than think Sherlock was dead. It's hard, though. Christ, it's hard.


**Aftermath**

* * *

He tells Mrs. Hudson he's staying with Harry. He tells Harry he's staying with Bill Murray, and he asks Bill to be a mate and tell anyone who asks that yes, he's there, but he doesn't want to talk to anyone. Bill's wife is suspicious, and he knows that sooner or later Harry is going to find out the truth, but hopefully she'll be smart about it and not go blabbing before asking him what the big idea is.

All he needs is some time. Some time to figure out what to do.

Every week, like it's a duty he must perform, he troops to the cemetery to visit a grave that he knows contains no occupant. He watches Mrs. Hudson cry and curse about the unfairness of it all, unable to end her pain and tell her that she cries for no reason. He watches as Lestrade descends into depression after losing the closest thing to a son he ever possessed. He watches Mycroft lose weight and become drawn. Their eyes are red nowadays, all of them. Even his own.

"I can't live like this," he thinks, and whispers to himself, laying on his side in a small, claustrophobic motel room. He hugs the edge of the mattress. It isn't big enough for two adult men and yet somehow he's managed to keep any part of himself from touching the bed's other occupant.

He doesn't mean to say it aloud. It comes out anyway. There is no reply from the other side of the bed.

Some part of him knows it's best. He knows that he would rather be here than somewhere else, drowning in depression like everyone else. He knows that he would rather be here, helping, than ignorant to the situation and alone and so many other things. He would rather know Sherlock was alive than think Sherlock was dead.

It's hard, though. Christ, it's hard. It's hard to pretend to grieve, to watch everyone around him beat themselves up, thinking _what could I have done differently._ Greg is by far the worst. He doesn't know what to do with himself, nowadays. Sometimes, John wishes he were like them. He wishes we weren't stuck in limbo. He wishes he were able to share in their misery.

He wonders if that makes him a bad person, or the exact opposite.

_It's a trick. Just a magic trick_.

_No. Alright, stop it now._

_No. Stay _exactly_ where you are. Don't move._

_Alright._

He turns over and reaches for Sherlock's hand. That long, elegant, chemical-stained hand that is warm now and was warm that day, when John grabbed at it and thought its owner was dead. He remembers reaching out, through meters upon meters of thin air, in a placating gesture that turned into a reach, into a desperate grope of panicked longing and fear. He grips tight as a ball clumps up in his throat and a shiver goes down his back.

Buries his face at the nape of that long, elegant neck and whispers, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that."

There is still no response, but the back that was against his becomes a front, and ribs and knees and _hipbones_, and they get naked and make love on sheets he probably wouldn't let his dog lay on, let alone his lover, but these are desperate times and they call for desperate measures, and later he lays on the soiled sheets with semen between his legs and semen on his belly and a raven-haired head on his chest.

Things feel moderately alright for the first time in a while.

"We leave here tomorrow," Sherlock whispers against the apple of John's shoulder.

He kisses the sweat-stained forehead, scarred long ago by some chemical in a way that looks enough like freckles for it not to be an aesthetic flaw. "Okay. Um." He presses his lips to a different scar, a different 'freckle', and closes his eyes and forgets to finish his thought, because he falls asleep there, with his lips against that little blemish, and Sherlock's leg slung over his hip and no blankets to cover his modesty.

_Keep your eyes fixed on me. Please, will you do this for me?_

_Do what?_

_This phone call…it's, er…it's my note. It's what people do, don't they? Leave a note?_

_Leave a note when?_

_Goodbye, John._

_No. Don't. NO. SHERLOCK!_

He wakes up, drenched in sweat from a nightmare. It's something that's become unfamiliar to him as his Afghanistan nightmares waned. He wonders how long he will be having them this time. Hopefully too long. He's not really sure what being on the run entails, but he's almost certain that one must get all the sleep one can, _while_ he can.

"Alright?"

The voice is groggy and low and, if there had been an 'S' sound, would be lisping. It's easy to imagine that they are back home, and nothing is wrong because the room is dark and there is a window next to the bed and it's easy to pretend that that window overlooks Baker Street and the scent of stale sex in the room is a reminder of only themselves, and not countless previous occupants as well.

"I'm fine." He inches closer, and presses himself as close against Sherlock's back as possible without physically being part of him, and buries his nose underneath the raven curls, at the nape of his neck. No matter what, he always smells like home here. Like tobacco smoke and old books.

Sherlock exhales a lungful of air, and he feels it against himself. Hears breath whisper around the room, both of theirs. They are on the edge of sleep, perhaps even sleeping. He's not sure.

"I keep seeing you falling," he whispers, on the off chance that he's actually awake and hasn't slipped back to sleep. His voice sounds harsh to his own ears; like he had sounded whispering into the transmitting end of a mobile phone, hiding from a monstrous hallucination in a lab deep underground. "Behind…behind my eyelids, whenever I close my eyes, I see you fall and I…I pray it's only a dream, and that I'm not waking up from one."

The unmistakable, wet sound of swallowing echoes around the room. The stomach muscles underneath his hand tense.

"I was scared," he whispers, he whimpers. "I was so scared."

A beat of silence passes, and his eyes sting with impending tears until he hears, "So was I," quietly and lowly and lisped, and he hugs Sherlock closer with both arms, like an oversized pillow, and lets his tears be soaked up by dark hair.

_Sher…_

_Sherlock. Sherlock…_

_I'm a doctor, let me come through. Let me come through, please._

_No, he's my friend. He's my friend. Please._

Please_, let me just…_

_Jesus no. God no._

There had been a pulse. Sherlock had explained to him that an honest effort had been made to appear as if there was none, but there it had been. He could feel it when he touched that warm wrist. At first, he thought it was just the last few beats of a dying man's heart. Then he realized how firm it had been, how strong. Like adrenalin was running through the veins to the heart, not as though blood were pouring out of it en mass.

Then he looked closer at the nurses hauling him off. They just so happened to be there at the right time, to cart the corpse fallen from the sky into the hospital. Their faces were covered with scarves, some of them, but it didn't stop him recognizing them when he looked closer. They were Irregulars.

"It's all just a magic trick," he muttered, mostly to himself, looking up at them. All good magic tricks had lovely assistants.

One of them met his gaze. She had brown, compassionate eyes. She whispered, "Say here please, Doctor Watson," and then joined in the effort to heave the seemingly-lifeless body into a stretcher that had recently appeared out of thin air.

"Where are you taking him?" he demanded, and got no reply, but then he realized that he knew where they were taking him.

For several minutes he sat there, intensely grateful to whatever God existed that he'd felt that pulse. He didn't want to think about the state he'd be in if he hadn't.

_There's stuff you wanted to say…but didn't say it._

_Yeah._

_Say it now?_

_No. Sorry, I can't._

"I won't be able to make it to any more sessions."

Ella looks up at him, surprised and not a little bit disgruntled. He knows her, and he knows her integrity enough to realize that it's not the aspect of lost income that makes her frown in disapproval. She genuinely cares, which makes it hard. She's the first in a long line of people he will have to disappoint. He doesn't even want to think about Mrs. Hudson, for whom he is her last link to someone she watched grow from a boy into a man.

But they are making for Scotland, today in fact. An old family property, owned by his grandfather and willed to him when the man passed. It is old, and he hasn't visited it since acquiring it some eight years ago, but he keeps in contact with a woman his grandfather had known, who as a favor drops by several times a year to make sure everything is still standing and the place is in good condition. As far as John knows, it's inhabitable.

"Why?"

"I'm going away." He stares out the window, which has a frankly pitiful view of the adjacent building, but it's better than facing the disappointment on Ella's face. "I…I need to go away."

"I'm not sure escapism is healthy for you right now."

He sighs deliberately and mutters, "It's not escapism. I just…I need a change of scenery. I need to get away from…from all of this. He loved this city. It reminds me too much of him. All of it, just…it's too much."

Although Ella still looks skeptical, she seems to accept his complete and utter lie and mutters, "Where are you going?"

"Edinburgh," he replies, and shifts to recross his legs. He's itching to leave, and he's not sure why. "I have a…a home there. I'm going to stay there for awhile."

"How long?"

"Not sure. Awhile." He stands up, because it's gotten to the point where he _must_ leave or risk suffocation. He says, "Thank you for all you've done, Ella. I'm very grateful. Please don't try to contact me."

Ella calls his name as he walks out, but he ignores her. Keeps walking and doesn't stop walking until he arrives outside and gets into the black car he knows is waiting for him, despite the fact that he's never seen this particular black car before in his life. It has tinted windows, and that's enough to give him a good idea of who is inside.

There sits Mycroft, just as he had been expecting. He's accompanied, as always, by his assistant. For once, she doesn't have her nose buried in her phone. She sits across from them and seems to monitor Mycroft very carefully. She looks wary. Mycroft looks determined. Shitty, but determined.

"John," he mutters.

"Mycroft," John replies.

They stare at each other for a few minutes, until Mycroft mutters, "Tell me what you know?"

A jolt goes down John's spine, like the time he was caught by the police with spray cans in his hands. Only this time he knows he's guilty, rather than just incriminated, and Mycroft looks so bad—red eyes, like he's either been crying or not sleeping or both, and bags under his eyes, pale and drawn and lifeless—that John thinks he might just give the man anything he wants to know. He wants to, in fact, simply to have someone to share the burden with. But he can't. It isn't his place.

"What I know?"

"About my brother."

He turns away, so Mycroft won't see the dishonesty in his eyes as he says, "I don't want to talk about him, Mycroft."

"You know something. I know you do."

Mycroft's assistant mutters, "Sir…" unsurely, as though worried or frightened. John can understand it. To anyone else, Mycroft's ramblings would sound insane. But John has no doubt that Mycroft has evidence to support the theory that his brother is alive and well.

John says, "Sherlock is dead, Mycroft. He's been dead, and he's going to stay dead…I don't want to think about it."

"You're a terrible liar, Doctor Watson."

At this, John reaches out for the handle of the car, which hasn't moved an inch, and makes to get out. Mycroft grabs his arm and says, "I can help you."

They stare at each other. John's mouth moves but no sound comes out. Finally, he wrenches his hand from Mycroft's and flees.

_She's dying, Sherlock. Let's go._

_You go. I'm busy._

_Busy?_

_Thinking. I need to think._

_You need to…Doesn't she mean _anything_ to you? You once half killed a man because he laid a finger on her.  
_

_She's my landlady._

_She's dying, you _machine.

He wasn't sure how, but somehow his feet managed to get him downstairs to Molly's lab. Despite never being told explicitly that it was where Sherlock would be, his intuition told him that there was only one way Sherlock could successfully fake a death, and that was with the help of a coroner. In a daze, he descended into the lab, hoping that he had actually seen and felt what he thought he'd seen and felt, and that it wasn't just a trick of the light, or his own pulse he felt in his fingers.

When he opened the door, there he was. Sherlock Holmes, alive and well. John collapsed against a lab table and tried, tried very hard, not to sob.

"John," Sherlock mumbled, and although it looked like Sherlock wasn't surprised, Molly obviously was not expecting him. She jumped back, wet paper towel in her hand. She'd been cleaning Sherlock's face of blood when he arrived.

"That…that blood. That's fake? Fake blood?" he asked, mostly because he wanted to make sure Sherlock had not actually been injured, but also because he had an intense urge to hit the man, to deck him right in the jaw, and he wanted to first assure himself that he was not contemplating further injury.

"Yes," Sherlock replied, so John advanced, and raised his hand, and Sherlock didn't even flinch. Molly snuck away, somewhere in the back of the lab, and John was glad because he didn't want her to see this, but…but then he stopped, and unballed his fist, and set his hands on Sherlock's shoulders and whispered, "I should hit you. I should. I should be angry, and…and I am, but…God, Sherlock." He hugged him, not caring if he didn't like it, but it seemed for once, Sherlock wanted the contact as much as John. He buried his face in John's shoulder, and closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, and John pressed their cheeks together and did the same.

"What if…what if I hadn't realized? What if I thought you were dead, what if…Jesus, what if my last words to you had been _you machine_? Do you know what that would have done to me? Huh?" He gripped Sherlock's cheeks and pressed their foreheads together so hard it hurt.

"I was worried you wouldn't understand," Sherlock murmured, "but the last thing I wanted to do was leave you behind."

"What about the others?"

He felt Sherlock's eyes open against his neck, and then a minute shaking of the head. "I don't know…"

Two weeks later, John walks around the corner, down the street, and sits on a park bench next to Sherlock, who's trying to look inconspicuous with a thick wool cap and jacket on. The coat had to be foregone. Too recognizable.

"You have to tell your brother you're alive."

Sherlock nods. "I know."

"Today."

Sherlock huffs and mutters, "I _know_," then gets up, because Ella was one of the few people John had to meet with today, and they are already behind schedule.

_I'm angry._

_It's okay, John. There's nothing unusual in that. That's the way he made everyone feel. All the marks on my table; and the noise – firing guns at half past one in the morning!_

_Yeah.  
_

_Bloody specimens in my fridge. Imagine – keeping bodies where there's food!  
_

_Yes._

Mrs. Hudson leaves him at the grave, thinking to give him privacy to say whatever he needs to. It's almost disturbing, to see the name on the tombstone. Even though he knows Sherlock does not reside below it—no one, in fact, does; the ceremony was closed-casket on the pretense that his face was too damaged from the fall and they put an empty coffin in the ground—he feels the cold, thin tendrils of sorrow wrap around his heart as he thinks of what might have happened.

When he thinks he's taken enough time, he walks away from the tombstone, back over to Mrs. Hudson. She sits on a bench, one of the memorial benches the cemetery builds if you have the money and the inclination. Her eyes are red-rimmed, and his heart aches.

"Listen," John murmurs, and crouches in front of her. He pants her knee. "I'm going away for a little while."

"Going where?" Mrs. Hudson asks, instead of immediately protesting. John hadn't really known what reaction he was expecting, but this hadn't been at all an impossibility.

"Scotland," he replies. It feels like he's explained this a thousand times today, though this is only the second. "My family is from there. My grandfather had a house there. He willed it to me when he died."

"Oh," Mrs. Hudson says, and when it becomes apparent that she will not say anymore, he embraces her and asks her if she wants him to walk her back to the taxi, but she refuses and says she wants to stay for a little while longer.

Sherlock stands far away, underneath a gazebo. It's started to rain. John grips his wrist and murmurs, "Watch her. Make sure she gets home okay. I've got something else to do…but I'll meet you at the station at four." He stares down, to where his hand grips Sherlock's arm. "And, um…talk to your brother. Please."

He nods, and John knows there's something wrong, but he doesn't ask. Can't ask; not when he knows there's something wrong with both of them and talking about it really won't help.

_Sherlock Holmes, I'm arresting you on suspicion of abduction and kidnapping._

_He's not resisting._

_It's all right, John._

_He's not resisting. No, it's not all right. This is ridiculous._

_Get him downstairs now._

_You know you don't have to do—  
_

_Don't try to interfere, or I shall arrest you too._

Donovan cannot even meet his eyes as he walks by her desk on his way to Lestrade's office. He finds himself strangely gleeful that she feels shame. She'd looked so smug, back at Baker Street when they had first arrested Sherlock. Some part of him realizes that she was played by Moriarty, as much as everyone else, that she was just an unwilling victim to his mind games. Some part of him speaks reason and says that she is no happier that he died than anyone else.

He hasn't been inclined to listen to his conscience in a while. He doesn't even acknowledge her presence as he walks past.

Lestrade, on the other hand, is someone that John is inclined to pity. He's still angry—Jesus, is he angry; Sherlock had _trusted him_—but to a lesser extent than he is at Donovan or Anderson or even the God-forsaken Chief Superintendent. John honestly hopes the man can't breathe out of his nose ever again.

"Hi," John mutters, as he comes into the office. Lestrade looks up at him, then back down at his desk, then leans back with a resigned expression on his face. John sits down and says, "I'm not here to harangue you."

"Didn't suppose you were," Lestrade mutters. His voice sounds rough, like he hasn't been talking a lot. John's not sure how he's gotten away with that, because he still has a team to head, but people can get up to some impressive feats when they are determined; even if their determination is to wallow in misery. "Might feel better if you did, though."

John shrugs and says, "Be that as it may…I'm not really in the mood to do any yelling."

"Hmm."

It's hard to see a man he'd come to think of as a friend afraid to meet his gaze. He wants to tell Lestrade that it's not his fault, that Moriarty tricked everyone. But at this point he's not certain whose fault it _is_—he thinks it might actually be his own—and he's in no position to be offering reassurances and forgiveness.

"I just came to say…goodbye. For a while."

Now Lestrade looks up.

"Where are you going?"

"Up north," John decides to say, and leaves it at that. "I can't…be here anymore."

Lestrade nods. "I understand."

"So, um. Yes." John nods, having said all he thinks he can, and gets up to leave.

"They're talking about suspending me," Lestrade mutters, and John takes pause. "Or…possibly even demoting me."

"I'm sorry…" John mumbles, and turns back around. "I…do you want me to…say something?"

"No. That's not why I'm mentioning it. I don't think there's anything you can say to convince them otherwise at this point. I just…just thought you should know." He leans back and rubs his face. John realizes how much older he looks. He's aged twenty years in two weeks. "I…bringing in Sherlock was…it wasn't something I ever exactly cleared with…with the higher ups, you know. When it all went pear-shaped, it reflected badly upon the force, and I was blamed. Plus, I've not been performing well since. I haven't slept, haven't…" He sighs again. "I'm so sorry, John. I…I don't know what to say. It feels like…it feels like I've lost a…a son."

"I know."

"Can't…can't imagine what it feels like for you."

Now John remembers that Lestrade is one of a select few that knows—knew—about the depth of his and Sherlock's relationship. Not only about the _relationship_ but…about how they'd saved each other.

At first, John doesn't want to answer. Doesn't really know what to say. Then he goes back to those moments after Sherlock fell, to the absolute despair. He whispers, "It felt…_feels_ like…like a part of me is missing. Like a part of me was…torn out. Torn out and…and burned in front of me."

Lestrade nods, like John had said nothing he hadn't been expecting, but it's no easier for him to have heard it. He covers his mouth and stares down at his desk and nods again, and John thinks about leaving, but ends up pulling a card out of his pocket and setting it on Lestrade's desk.

"Doctor Ella Thompson." Lestrade mutters, lifting the card off his desk and staring blankly at it.

"My psychologist," John elaborates. "She…she's good. Nice. Genuinely helpful. She was recommended to me when I was discharged, what with the PTSD and everything. She might be able to do something for you."

"What about you?" Lestrade asks.

John chooses to ignore him, because at this point it doesn't really matter, and heads out the door. He's not sure when he'll see Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade again.

_Moriarty wanted Sherlock destroyed, right? And you have given him the perfect ammunition.  
_

_John…I'm sorry.  
_

_Oh, please…  
_

_Tell him, would you?_

"I…I can't."

John rolls his eyes heavenward and snaps, "Oh, please. I've had it with this sibling rivalry. I've literally had it up to here, Sherlock. I'm not telling your brother you're alive; you have to do it." He drops his hand from where he raised it to his forehead, and stares out the window. Sherlock has red hair. It's disconcerting to him.

"Mycroft will hate me…for what I've done."

Without thinking, John snorts and mutters, "Like you care."

"For a long time, that's all I _did_ care about."

John's head snaps up, but Sherlock isn't looking at him. He's staring into the middle distance, ice blue eyes looking without seeing. "When we were boys, he was…my hero. He represented everything I wanted to be, everything I thought of as good and strong and just."

"What happened?"

"He stopped caring. About anything but his precious fucking political career, that is." Sherlock snaps the word 'political' like it is the curse word in the sentence, and John realizes for the first time what Sherlock's problems with authority ultimately stem from. "I've shamed him, our family…there are people who know he's my brother, and who will use it against him."

"You honestly think he cares?" John whispers.

"I honestly don't think he cares about anything else," Sherlock mutters.

"I've spoken to him."

Sherlock doesn't look surprised, but he does glance away from the window for a minute to stare at John. "You're telling me this why?"

"You haven't seen him since you jumped. Obviously. He's…he's tearing himself apart." John shakes his head, at a loss. "You have to tell him, Sherlock. You must. He'll…if there is such a thing as dying of a broken heart, I think he might just do it over you. You're the only thing he has left. He told me once that…he worries about you constantly. I always thought it was because he thought you might get into trouble, but now I think it's because he was afraid of losing you. To your profession, to your work."

"If that was the case, why would he have distanced himself in the first place?"

"Perhaps…it was less painful."

Sherlock mouths something that John can't hear, but he thinks he probably isn't meant to. Louder, he says, "I'll tell him."

"Good."

There is the small matter that they are already on the train to Scotland, and soon they will be several hundred miles from Mycroft. John pulls out his phone and considers carefully what he wants to say.

_Meet me here tomorrow morning and you'll get the answers you want._

He includes the address, and sends off the message. Sherlock watches him.

_You…you told me once that you weren't a hero._

The house is the same as John remembers it being from his childhood. He's visited the property few times since he started medical school, and only once since enlisting. It's on its own quarter-acre, which means the neighbors on either side are quite far away, which affords them privacy that would have been hard to find in London.

""How long do you think we'll stay here?" John mutters, as they get out of the taxi that brought them from the train station to the house. Sherlock kept his face down the entire time. They're pretty sure the news from London is common knowledge in this area of Scotland, and they're not sure how recognizable Sherlock's face would be, even with the changed hair color.

"Not sure," Sherlock mutters. John pays the cabbie and they walk up to the house. John, who's kept the key on his chain all these years despite not being a regular visitor, opens the door and allows Sherlock inside. The house is dark and smells musty but the furniture is there and covered so at least they won't be covered in dust.

"Why didn't you come here when you were discharged?" Sherlock mutters, drifting into the house. "A house in Edinburgh is better than a hole in the wall in London."

John shrugs. "It never really crossed my mind. I'm sure, eventually, it would have, but…I'd never considered Scotland my home, even though I was born here. It's always been London, as long as I can remember…and it was more comforting for me to be in London."

For a long minute, Sherlock stares at him. Examines him. He tries to stay still, because he knows Sherlock is thinking even though he's not sure what Sherlock is thinking _about_. They stay like that for quite a while, until Sherlock steps to him and lowers his head to deliver a slow kiss, then press their foreheads together.

"It means…very much to me."

John isn't sure what Sherlock is talking about; London or Scotland or use of the house or even _John_, but he's long ago resigned himself to some things about Sherlock forever remaining mysterious. So he carries their bags—mere overnight packs, because they hadn't had time to travel any heavier than that—into the bedroom and comes down stairs and asks what Sherlock wants to do about dinner, because anything that might happen to be in the cabinets is not safe for consumption and he knows Sherlock hasn't eaten all day.

They order pizza, which John comes to the door for. They sit in the living room and eat it.

_There were times I didn't even think you were _human_._

John washes the dishes in the sink. His grandfather doesn't have a dishwasher, because he's pretty sure the man never actually immerged into the twentieth century, much less the twenty-first. He's surprised the house has heat, which in the middle of June they don't really need but turn on anyway because the house is damp from being empty for so long.

Footsteps behind him alert him to Sherlock's presence, but for a long time he just seems to stand there. John stares out the kitchen window, which overlooks the backyard, and listens for movement. It's Sherlock staring at John listening to Sherlock and for a minute John almost expects Sherlock to stay there until John moves, but eventually he comes up to stand behind him and place his hands on John's shoulders.

"What?" John asks.

Sherlock moves his hands down to John's hips and presses his mouth to John's shoulder blade, his _scapula_, and whispers, "I want to touch you."

"Oh. I'm not really…" Then he sees the look in Sherlock's eyes a look like he's trying not to crumble into a million pieces, and suddenly he _is_. "Alright."

So Sherlock turns him around and kneels and fellates him in the kitchen of his grandfather's house, and there's something surreal about it, something wrong about it, but everything recently has been surreal and wrong.

It's at some point, while he's got his hand tangled in Sherlock's newly red locks and telling him he's got such a pretty mouth—trying to act normal, failing—that he realizes wherever Sherlock is going after Scotland, he doesn't plan to take John with him.

_But let me tell you this: you were the best man, and the most human…human being that I've ever known._

"You're going to leave."

Sherlock looks up, and John can barely make him out in the darkness of the room. Only his eyes, bright and catlike, are clear and completely visible. They are narrowed, John thinks his eyebrows must be furrowed.

"What?"

"You're going to leave, and…" John swallows, because he can already taste the horrid words in his mouth. He feels as though he'll vomit. "You're not…not taking me with you. You're going off alone, you're going to fight Moriarty…Moriarty's organization alone and you're _not taking me with you_." He gets slightly more hysterical as he goes, but he can't help it.

Silence. The longest silence of John's life. He can't tell whether he wants Sherlock to confirm, just so John knows he's not being lied to, or whether he _wants_ Sherlock to lie, just so he'll have an illusion of comfort for however long Sherlock stays. Something tells him it won't be long.

"There's really…no point in lying to you, is there?"

"No."

Sherlock breathes in deep. John can see his stomach move under the sheets. "Yes. It's safer."

"Since when do I give a _fuck_ about safe?"

"I do."

"Since when?"

Sherlock just stares at him, as though waiting for John to answer the question himself. Even though John knew the answer all along, it still enrages him that Sherlock can be so _selfish_ as to think only about his own piece of mind. "What about me? You don't think I want you to be safe?"

"I know you do, but one of us has to fight this war…and with all due respect, you've already fought yours."

_And no one will ever convince me that you told me a lie, and so…there._

Mycroft comes earlier the next morning, and John stays in the bedroom while they talk. There is a lot of screaming. Something is thrown. John is almost certain someone gets punched and he's almost certain it's not Mycroft.

Then there's silence and John is almost afraid to venture out, but then the silence continues and he figures he should go make sure no one is dead.

What he finds is at once shocking and unsurprising. The brothers are embracing, and though he can't see Sherlock's face, buried as it is in his taller brother's shoulder, Mycroft's eyes are red and his cheeks are wet. There are no more tears falling, but the evidence is plain to see. Mycroft is whispering something. John thinks it might be 'Thank God.'

"I realize you won't tell me where you plan to go," Mycroft mumbles, later as they all sit. There is no tea but they all clutch glasses of water because they're British and staring over beverages at each other during times of crisis is what they _do_, even if there is no tea. "But I will attempt to aid as much as possible. I have the ability to reopen Sherlock's trust fund, which I'll do…under one condition."

"What?" Sherlock asks. "That I don't take anymore drugs? I frankly don't think I'll have time, Mycroft."

"No."

"Then what?"

"Keep in touch."

So Sherlock nods, because it's the least he can do, John thinks.

Mycroft leaves around noon and John goes upstairs for a nap, knowing that Sherlock won't be in Scotland when he wakes up.

_I was so alone…and I owe you so much_.

He wakes up. It's dark. The house is cold. He's not sure how much longer he'll stay in Scotland, because already the loneliness is setting in and he thinks the company of Mrs. Hudson or his mother or even Harry might help, and they're all in London.

He gets up and walks downstairs.

Sherlock sits on the sofa. They stare at each other for a moment.

Sherlock says, "I couldn't."

John says, "Thank God."

They plan to return to London and tell a select few people their big, bursting secret and perhaps get Scotland Yard on board with their manhunt because a one-man army never did any good and John feels like somehow, a repetition of history has been averted.

* * *

**End Story**

* * *

I was going to attempt an ambiguous ending, but I couldn't, so there. I hope you guys enjoyed! This was mostly to help me with some writer's block I've been battling for the last few weeks.


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